As is known, over the past few years, the automotive industry has become increasingly aware of the need to improve driving safety.
Accordingly, electronic vehicle stability control systems have been devised, such as the ESC (Electronic Stability Control) system, which intervenes when skidding, by adjusting output of the engine and/or differentially controlling braking of the vehicle wheels to automatically right the vehicle.
More specifically, the ESC system is designed to intervene in the event of sharp swerving and/or over- or understeering conditions caused by the driver mishandling the vehicle when cornering, to prevent the vehicle from skidding.
The control architecture of the ESC system is substantially based on a number of mathematical models representing the dynamic behaviour of the vehicle in different handling conditions by means of vehicle parameters and motion equations.
More specifically, the dynamic cornering behaviour of the vehicle in over- or understeering conditions is defined by a mathematical model substantially characterized by vehicle parameters related to the “mechanical structure”, e.g. geometry and mass distribution, of the vehicle.
Though effective, the control architecture of the above stability control system does not allow the driver, in stable vehicle conditions, to enhance the cornering performance of the vehicle as desired to achieve a response, e.g. racing performance mode, other than that provided for by the stability control system.
In other words, in stable vehicle conditions, the above stability control system does not allow the driver to enhance vehicle performance, e.g. to achieve faster braking of the wheels in response to driver control.